'This Week' Transcript: Former President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, Lt. General Ken Keen and USAID Chief Rajiv Shah.

Jan. 17, 2010

Page 13 of 16

VANDEN HEUVEL: I think it's a wake-up call. I know everyone says
she's run a lackluster campaign. It's Massachusetts. But it's a
wake-up call in the sense that Democrats cannot run as managerial -- as
a managerial party moving forward. And I think that's part of what the
campaign was, partly because Democrats haven't been challenged.

I think you do need to retrieve, if not populism, the passion. Part
of what President Obama, I fear, did in the timid response to the
unemployment situation, which is, by the way, a legacy -- if the
Republicans were in power, we'd have a barter economy and 25 percent
unemployment. But he opened the door to the tea bag intensity, which is
-- which has real force, no question about it, and could undermine a
generation of progressive work.

So I think Democrats need to retrieve that intensity and take back
-- I hate to quote William Butler Yeats with George Will at the table,
but the worst should not have the passionate conviction. The best must
retrieve those convictions.

TAPPER: And Democrats are trying right now to -- to gain some steam
in Massachusetts with this bank fee that President Obama has proposed on
-- on going after bank bonuses, purportedly, with the new bank fee. Do
you think that's going to have any traction?

CARLSON: This is late-stage alcoholism. This is denial, OK? This
race is not about Martha Coakley. Sure, she's a bad candidate. John
Kerry keeps getting re-elected from Massachusetts, so that's no barrier
to getting elected in that state. It's not about Martha Coakley. It's
about the president's policies.

His health care plan is polling at 36 percent in Massachusetts right
now. Nationally, it's polling at 44 percent. It's lower in the most
liberal state in the country, probably because they already have a
species of it under Romneycare.

The point is, this is a referendum and it's explicit -- if you watch
what Scott Brown is saying on the stump, it's an explicit referendum on
Obama's policies, economic policies more broadly and health policy more
specifically. That's all it's about. And Democrats need to figure that
out and respond to it, or they're really going to get creamed in the
midterms.

WILL: It's largely health care, but there's something else
involved. Between Christmas and New Year's, the Scott Brown campaign
took off with an ad by Jack Kennedy saying, "Cutting taxes is good for
the economy and good for Democrats and good for Republicans." But on
health care, Scott Brown says this is a referendum on the president's
signature issue. Elect me, and I will be the 41st vote to stop this thing.

The fact that the president is flying to Massachusetts indicates
this is, A, a referendum on him and, B, he's already lost the
referendum, because he has to go up and...

(CROSSTALK)

BRAZILE: Scott Brown does not provide health care to his own
employees. This is really a campaign that Scott Brown has largely
defined in the last -- in the closing days of the election, because
Martha Coakley did not really go out there and campaign. She really
took time off, and that's -- you never do that. You give your
opposition the ability to organize.

And he's basically campaigning as, I am running for Ted Kennedy's
seat, but this is not Martha Coakley's seat.

VANDEN HEUVEL: And, also, Coakley is going to put Brown on the
spot. It's late, maybe. But she's going to say, are you on the side of
the people or the banks?